Copyright Rumman Amin Rising temperatures, drought, and soaring energy costs are putting favourite foods on the Christmas menu at risk. Millions of families around the globe will sit down to a Christmas meal on 25 December featuring time-honoured dishes like roast turkey and cranberry sauce. But some might notice that costs for these traditional foods are a little higher this year, or perhaps stock seems scarcer. Many key ingredients for a Christmas dinner have been hit by climate change seeing yields reduce or forcing farmers to introduce adaptations. Here’s how the climate is changing our festive meals. Turkeys are ‘stressed’ by rising temperatures Turkey farms in the UK and the US have been struggling to contend with rising temperatures in recent years. Hotter summers in Britain have resulted in increasingly stressed birds . This makes the animals sweat more – causing them to lose weight and driving up the cost of the meat. Prices for turkeys are also indirectly affected by soaring gas bills , which is making the running of incubators for chicks more expensive. In the US, wild turkey populations fell by around 18 per cent between 2014 and 2019, according to The Wildlife Society. Like in the UK, farmed turkeys are also suffering the heat – and feed prices are rising due to crop failures . Cranberries are ‘scalded’ by summer heat In the US, cranberry production has been hit by warming temperatures. Steve Ward, a second-generation cranberry grower in Massachusetts, said farmers are having to adapt to a changing climate. The Massachusetts Cranberries, a group that advocates on behalf of the industry, said this may have led to a lower harvest this year. “We have had some challenges with some of the hot weather and had one of the longest dry spells we have ever […]